The Butterbox Babies - Movie - DVD- Base on True Events

Between 400 and 600 babies were killed at this "maternity" home in Nova Scotia, Canada.

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This 1995 movie is based on true events at The Ideal Maternity Home.

The Ideal Maternity Home operated in East Chester, Nova
Scotia, Canada from the late 1920s through at least the
late 1940s. William and Lila Young operated it. William
was a chiropractor and Lila was a midwife, although she
advertised herself as an obstetrician. While they were tried
for various crimes involving the home, including manslaughter,
the entire truth of the horrors perpetrated there was not
widely known until much later.

The Ideal Maternity Home promised both maternity care for
local married couples and discreet birthing and placement
for children of unwed mothers. The home was the source of
babies for an illegal trade in infants between Canada and
the United States. During this period the laws in the US
forbid adoption across religious backgrounds. There was
an acute shortage of babies available for Jewish couples
to adopt. The home would provide these desperate people
"black market" adoptions charging up to $10,000 for a baby.
Many of the babies in the 1940s ended up in Jewish homes
in New Jersey. At the same time they would charge the mothers
$500 for their services. At this time the average wage in
the area was $8 a week. Many of the mothers could not afford
this sum, and were forced to work at the home for up to
eighteen months to pay their bill.

During WWII business was booming because nearby Halifax
was a major port serving as the point of departure for convoys
crossing the North Atlantic to England. Many of these ships
never completed the journey. The sailors and merchant seamen
would squeeze as much of life into their days in port as
they could, and many women were left as unmarried or widowed
expectant mothers. The Ideal Maternity Home offered almost
the only place that could provide for these women and their
children.

What was discovered later was that the Youngs would purposely
starve "unmarketable" babies to death by feeding them only
molasses and water. On this diet the infants would usually
last only two weeks. Any deformity, a serious illness or
"dark" coloration would often seal their fate. Babies who
died were disposed of in small wooden grocery boxes, typically
used for dairy products. Thus the term Butterbox Babies
is used to refer to these unfortunate infants. The Butterbox
Babies bodies were buried on the property, adjacent to a
nearby cemetery, at sea or sometimes burned in the homes
furnace. In some cases married couples who had come to the
home solely for birthing services were told that their baby
had died shortly after birth. In truth these babies were
also sold to adoptive parents. The Youngs would also separate
or create siblings to meet the desires of customers. It
is estimated that between four and six hundred babies died
at the home, while at least another thousand survived and
were adopted. Even these lucky survivors often suffered
from ailments caused by the unsanitary conditions and lack
of care at the home.

Survivors of dark episode in Canada's history trace
their past

WHEN RIVA Barnett Saia was old enough to read, her parents
gave her a copy of the "The Chosen Baby," a book that explained
why her olive-skinned family didn't share her blue eyes
and blond hair.

Now, Saia and as many as 40 other adoptees living in
the U.S.A.... are discovering their identities within the
pages of a paperback book, linking them to a dark chapter
in Canada's history.

The adoptees came from the Ideal Maternity Home, an illegally
run home for unwed mothers in the rural east Canadian province
of Nova Scotia, where many babies were sold on the black
market to desperate couples from New York and New Jersey
in the 1930s and '40s.

The unwanted children were
killed and buried in Butterboxes for coffins in unmarked
graves in a field.

A harrowing discovery in Ireland casts light on the
Catholic Church's history of abusing unwed mothers and
their babies � and emboldened survivors to demand
accountability.
More..

The Story of the Killing of Innocent Canadian Children

Since the 1992 publication of Butterbox Babies, the Ideal Maternity Home
in Chester, Nova Scotia, has become synonymous with illegal adoptions and
suspicious baby deaths. Much attention has been given to the neglect of
infants at the Home, the exorbitant fees paid by adoptive parents, and the
secretive nature of the transactions.

But what became of the children who were adopted? What effect did their
shaky beginnings have on their later lives? Were they loved and cherished,
or mistreated and ignored? Did they feel like "family"? Did they
always wonder who they were? In this comprehensive book, author and Survivor
Robert Hartlen has compiled the personal stories of thirty six of the adult
adoptees who survived the Ideal Maternity Home.
More ..